1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sheet supplying device for supplying a sheet from a sheet cassette to a sheet feed path of an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine.
2. Description of Related Art
A sheet supplying device is proposed as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,968,019, issued Nov. 6, 1990. The proposed sheet supplying device has an array of suction cups into and out of contact with an uppermost one of stacked sheets in a sheet cassette. After the suction cups are held against the uppermost sheet, a vacuum is developed in the suction cups to enable the suction cups to attract the uppermost sheet. Then, the suction cups are raised with the uppermost sheet attracted thereto, and a leading end of the attracted and raised uppermost sheet is nipped, and the sheet is delivered into a sheet feed path. When the suction cups are raised, they are angularly moved about an axis to cause the leading end of the attracted uppermost sheet to be obliquely separated from other stacked sheets.
However, in the proposed sheet supplying device, when suction cups are raised attracting the uppermost sheet, a plurality of sheets under the uppermost sheet are raised with the uppermost sheet by the static electricity generated between sheets and are fed to the sheet feed path.